An unlikely pen pal...

Justin's wife and I have been e-mailing each other a little bit lately. Do you know how surreal it is for me to say that? How did I wind up here? I don’t ask that question in a bad way, but in a way that makes me appreciate the way life moves.

As many of you know, Justin was the first boy I ever loved and it was a long time ago. For any of you who don’t know anything about him, I was 17 when I met him (he transferred to my high school). I stopped loving him “that way” when I was 20 or so. The last time I saw him was when I was 26, I think, not long before Eric and I started dating. When I was dating Eric (let’s say this was in 2000 or early 2001), I saw in the newspaper that Justin was getting married (he was still living down south, where he went to college). I was really happy for him and hoped he was marrying a good woman.

Fast forward several years to December 2005. I am at church in the sacristy before mass because I was going to serve as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion that night. This woman walked in and asked me if I was me. I told her I was. She told me she was “Justin’s wife.” I asked her what her name was. She told me. She said she recognized me from pictures.

It does one's heart immeasurable good to know that they actually meant something to someone even if they no longer mean what they once did. I realized what it meant to me that he had kept his pictures of me somewhere, that he showed them to the woman that he married, that she knew who I was and what I had been. I am sure she heard both the good and the bad (there was plenty of both), but she had heard it all because I was someone who had mattered. Even all those years later, it could still be said that our knowing one another meant something (whether it be formative or whatever), and I was grateful to know it was so. We always hope that’s the case when a relationship ends, but how often can we say we know for sure?

She informed me at that time that Justin was in Iraq. I don’t think I even knew he had entered the Army (he was a bit of a late “vocation” to the Army in comparison to other men, I'd say). She said that her mother-in-law and her baby were in the church if I wanted to see them. I went and saw Justin’s mother for the first time in many years and laid eyes on Justin’s baby. When we were younger, I had always imagined in my mind’s eye what Justin’s babies would look like, and although this baby was precious, he didn’t “look” the way I thought he would. It was such a crazy experience. How many of us get to see the babies of the first boy we ever loved?

Justin’s wife was at my church that night because she was living with her in-laws while Justin was in Iraq and she was in the RCIA program at my parish (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) to enter the Roman Catholic Church. Months later, I was there with her at the Easter Vigil mass to watch this kind woman enter the Church. It was a great moment; I was her only friend or family in attendance. I felt very blessed that night--that the Lord had orchestrated this very unique union between her and I that Justin was completely absent from.

She once told a story of the way he reacted to something and said to me, “Well, you know him! You know exactly what I mean!” and I had such respect for her in that moment. Think about it. She was willing to admit and acknowledge the fact that someone else in the world also really “knew” her husband’s quirks and behaviors. I don’t know too many women with the confidence in herself and her relationship to freely admit out loud that another woman might know many of the things she knows about her husband (especially to that other woman directly!).

After she left our town and Justin returned from Iraq, she and I exchanged Christmas cards. I received the birth announcement for their second baby a year ago.

I didn’t hear from her this Christmas, and I recently asked my friend Terry from my parish (who helped teach RCIA) if she had heard from her. She passed my e-mail on and I heard from her immediately. They are well.

She reports that Justin is really succeeding in the military (he currently is a sergeant and is going to warrant officer school). I see pictures of him and I see that he actually looks like a 35-year-old man. I take time and realize that he is a completely different person than I once knew and that is OK, and in fact, a good thing. Then his wife mentions that he talks in his sleep and I realize he is likely also in many ways exactly the same as the boy I once loved all those years ago. It's emotional for me to try to wrap my brain around it all and how you have to sit sometimes and see that you are as old as you are and where did the time go and what have we done with all of this time?

Oh, and I wanted to say—I saw a picture of their second baby boy, who just turned 1, and let me tell you, he looks exactly the way I had always imagined Justin’s babies would look. Exactly.